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I've always enjoyed reading. As a kid, my mother used to read WITH me (not TO me). My nan used to alliterate books and make stories fun. My dad used to do "flashcards" with me.

When I went to school (early 1980's, north London) we had boxes of books. Each box was for a specific year - we could pick books, read them, write a review ("It was good, I liked it because of the dog") and choose another. This was quite independent, thinking back.

In my 2nd year at the school, I had read all of the books in the designated box, and moved onto the next year's. Once my teacher had realised I'd completed those...

I was told off for reading too many books!

WTF? Let's not encourage this lad who clearly enjoys reading. Oh no, let's firstly question that he's actually read the books, and then tell him his is naughty for reading them too quickly (even though I clearly had read them properly). I remember being told that books "weren't free".

Thankfully, my parents came in and set things straight - suggesting the whole issue was pathetic, and if I wanted to read more then they would provide me with as many books as I could read.

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He could be a fast/speed reader with excellent comprehension & memory. These books are also probably not 300-400 page novels more than likely.

This. I read about 150 pages in an hour at that age. Read a book for 2 hours or play video games... Some how I think a child "having no life" because the read sounds better than a child having no life because of video games.

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I work in a library (IT). Libraries get their money from peoples taxes via a budget vote,. if one child keeps winning the whole time the other parents are more likely to never visit the library again and vote no on the next budget. It has to upset one kid and his family to keep the rest of the parents happy so that the library can continue to get its funding.

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I would change the contest to have different categories and only one winner per category. While I applaud the kid for loving to read (when I was his age, I started reading all of Stephen King's novels and would finish two to three in a couple of weeks), the concerning thing here is that everyone else is giving up and no one can keep up to what he's doing. We don't know if this kid's a genius or banned from doing anything else at home but read. Having multiple categories at least gives a shot to others who might not be as gifted or even have time like this kid does.

On the other hand, I really think we should also cut out the "Everyone gets a trophy" phase for just participating. We're doing nothing here to prepare our youth for failure in the future.

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I would change the contest to have different categories and only one winner per category. While I applaud the kid for loving to read (when I was his age, I started reading all of Stephen King's novels and would finish two to three in a couple of weeks), the concerning thing here is that everyone else is giving up and no one can keep up to what he's doing. We don't know if this kid's a genius or banned from doing anything else at home but read. Having multiple categories at least gives a shot to others who might not be as gifted or even have time like this kid does.

On the other hand, I really think we should also cut out the "Everyone gets a trophy" phase for just participating. We're doing nothing here to prepare our youth for failure in the future.

I agree with the latter bit absolutely. THAT I think has more to do with this than anything else.

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This is a tricky one. One the one hand, you have people who are just lazy and do the bare minimum to get something at the end. On the other hand, you have others who bust their asses to do well but just cannot keep up with other kids. Some kids are exceptional and no matter how hard you try, they cannot be beaten. Personally, there should be a minimum number of times you can win in a row to give the people who want to work for it, a chance to win. Its not hard to tell the difference between the lazy ones, and the hard working ones.

yea, they should do this with sports too, baseball, football, soccer... and the olympics! sorry, you had the best time/highest score but the other team just worked SOOO hard, they win! /s

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I work in a library (IT). Libraries get their money from peoples taxes via a budget vote,. if one child keeps winning the whole time the other parents are more likely to never visit the library again and vote no on the next budget. It has to upset one kid and his family to keep the rest of the parents happy so that the library can continue to get its funding.

I hear ya but that's pretty damn sad.

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"The kids call her Gram. That makes it even worse," Tyler's mother, Katie Weaver, tells Yahoo Shine. "Gram" is Lita Casey, a library aide who spent 28 years working at the Hudson Falls Free Library. But Casey says that the library's board of trustees let her go without reason this week, a month after Casey defended Tyler, who won the library's summer reading contest, "Dig into Reading," for the fifth time by reading the most books in a six-week period.

"I

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Because it is actually in line with the liberal style school system we have in the US. If everyone is special and everyone is a winner, that means that if anyone actually is a winner and special, they have to be held back so others aren't discouraged. Public school systems don't encourage there students to do better than average, which is a 70%. If you do, situations like this one happen and they try to separate you from the rest of the group because you destroy the idea that everyone is special and a winner. It is not uncommon for teachers to tell students to not raise there hand anymore and let other people answer because it makes others feel stupid. While there are some conservatives that also subscribe to this crap, this is primarily a liberal idea that stems from everyone having to be PC and nobody offending anyone else in any way, shape, or form.

Ironic, given that the liberal half of America is generally far better educated than the conservative half, hell look at the kind of dribbling idiots you get on Fox, probably your country's premier conservative mouthpiece.

I know this is a thought Americans don't like to encompass but not everything has to be a war or competition, you can encourage people to learn without punishing people that are a little slower, one thing you can guarantee is that if we lived in the sad little world you conservatives want where children that don't make the cut get bullied you can absolutely guarantee that they will never thrive. The point of schools is to educate not encourage pointless competition.

In terms of the OP however, the point of a reading competition is to compete, if the other entrants can't compete that's their problem.